1. "Thornbacks, Spinsters and Other Mythical Beasts"
Posted by Edisto on Feb-2nd-03 at 9:03 PM

There's an interesting article in the current issue of AntiqueWeek.  It mostly pertains to the Victorian era, so I'm posting it here.  It's perhaps vaguely related to the Borden case.  The article is by Marian I. Doyle, who does a regular feature on photographs and other antique graphic material:

     "There was an old maiden from Fife,
      Who had never been kissed in her life,
      Along came a cat,
      And she said, 'I'll kiss that!'
      And the cat answered, 'Not on your life!'"

"Old Maid," "Thornback," and "Old Prune" were some of the nicknames given to unmarried women past their prime in the nineteenth century.  Slightly nicer terms were "maiden lady" and "spinster."  The term "spinster" had been used since Anglo-Saxon times, when girls weren't allowed to wed until they had spun (and woven) a complete set of bed, table and body linens.  The unmarried were considered to be still at work on this project.

Gideon Wurz's 1904 "Foolish Dictionary" (I call that "stretch Victorian") described a spinster as "an ember from which the sparks have fled."  She was either a desperate pursuer of men or a man-hater who "wouldn't trust her safety to a life buoy."

In 1855, "Harper's Monthly" furnished this definition:  "OLD MAID (Victus Atratus): Order, mammalia; genus, sapiens; class, ominiverous; appearance, eyes sharp, nose thin, mouth capacious, digits semi-prehensil; most of them are fierce, some are untamable, others of a mild, evincing manner, even a degree of attachment possible, especially for dogs, cats, canary-birds, and parrots, but they have most implacable enmity to man...They are remarkably tenacious of life, and generally attain to a good old age; indeed they have frequently been known to exist for a long time on tea and scandal."

In 1870, "Appleton's Journal" said: "At 20, a woman wonders whom she will have; at 30, she wonders who will have her."  In 1882, author Marion Harland recorded in "Eve's Daughters" that a woman who hadn't married by 25 grew uneasy.  One girl of 20 told her, "I'm not ashamed to acknowledge that I intend to take the first good offer I have.  Think of the disgrace of having one's maiden name inscribed upon her tombstone."

Before the mid-1800s, a woman who didn't marry in her 20s was doomed to a life of shadowy dependency on her relatives.  After that, there were a few approved "careers" for women.  They could take in laundry, cook, keep house, sew or mend, or even become professional dressmakers or milliners.  Midwives and governesses were in demand, and middle-class women could teach in the public schools.  Until late Victorian times, clerking in a store wasn't considered respectable unless the proprietor was a relative.

By 1857, "Harper's Weekly" was expressing concern about the effect of education on a woman's chances to marry.  The magazine believed a considerable number of girl graduates wouldn't marry, because they would have learned to "study actions in their consequences" and would steer clear of marriage as a result.  The Civil War and the trek westward by many young men thinned the ranks of eligible suitors.  In 1870, "Scribner's Weekly" reported that half the girls at a hotel "hop" were dancing with partners of their own sex.  A financial panic in 1873 forced more women into the workforce.  Electric street lamps made it possible for women to travel safely alone at night, and new inventions created jobs as telephone operators, typists and factory workers.  Women descended on the cities in large numbers.  In New York, many hallways in old houses were converted into lodgings for the new bachelor girls.

In 1896, Mary Gay Humphreys described in "Scribner's" a group of young women up on a scaffold, wearing men's trousers under their skirts so that they could do decorative ceiling work.  Other women were opting for careers as doctors or founding their own businesses.  Humphreys applauded the "frank, unapologetic manner of the woman bachelor."

Did Emma and Lizzie Borden have a choice?  Perhaps...

(This article is illustrated with a selection of antique comic valentines depicting the pitiful state of "Old Maids.")

I'm really depressed now.





But, on a lighter note, I have called myself a "spinster" around some of
my male friends & they always snigger & roll their eyes.



I think Lizzie & Emma did have choices --- they didn't have to find a
man to take care of them, they had one. They could have held out for
a man they actually liked.

I was a librarian for 8 years, mostly a children's librarian, youth specialist, booktalker, and storyteller. One of our duties was to read all the new children's books that we purchased so we could keep up on the latest trends, know which books to offer a reader who could not decide, etc.

One day a book came my way about a librarian. Actually it was about a young girl (flaming red hair) who always had her nose in a book. It was a really nice picture book for grades 3-6. The girl grew up to be a librarian. And what do you know, she lived with her girlfriend and had a cat and read books at night instead of dating.

All euphemisms for lesbianism.

I always wondered about those Fall River women. So many never married. Lizzie, Emma, Alice Russell, and others. Now that doesn't mean they were gay, just that not getting married was fairly common in Lizzie's circle.

That was really interesting Edisto!
But gee, after a while it felt like they were really rubbing it in!

You'd think, if old-maid-ship was such anathema to the human race, they wouldn't live so long!  (Natural Selection & Survival of the Fittest etc.)
Maybe it is the proper state TO live Longer!

I assure you that article doesn't in any way reflect my own opinion!  I have a certain amount of envy for women who aren't married and who are financially independent.  A mate is at best a mixed blessing and at worst no kind of blessing at all.  I think that article reflects a history that is happily long past.  It shows how early the "modern woman" was beginning to emerge  -- early enough that Emma and Lizzie could probably have taken advantage of the trend.  I also found the origin of the term "spinster" to be intriguing.  If a spinster was still spinning, clearly there was hope for her.

Thanks for the interesting article, Edisto.  I've been on both sides of the coin, married and now not, and there are pros and cons to both.

I hate the caricature of the old maid that is still prevelent to this day thanks to that hateful card game.


The old maid is still alive and well in jokes too, found this poem called  The Old Maid's Burglar

A story I'll tell of a burglar bold
Who started to rob a house;
He opened the window, and then crept in
As quiet as a mouse.

He looked around for a place to hide,
'Till the folks were all asleep,
Then said he, "With their money
I'll take a quiet sneak."

So under the bed the burglar crept;
He crept up close to the wall;
He didn't know it was an old maid's room
Or he wouldn't have had the gall.

He thought of the money that he would steal,
As under the bed he lay;
But at nine o'clock he saw a sight
That made his hair turn gray.

At nine o'clock the old maid came in;
"I am so tired," she said;
She thought that all was well that night
So she didn't look under the bed.

She took out her teeth and her big glass eye,
And the hair from off her head;
The burglar, he had forty fits
As he watched from under the bed.

From under the bed the burglar crept,
He was a total wreck;
The old maid wasn't asleep at all
And she grabbed him by the neck.

She didn't holler, or shout or call,
She was as cool as a clam;
She only said, "The Saints be praised,
At last I've got a man!"

From under the pillow a gun she drew,
And to the burglar she said,
"Young man, if you don't marry me,
I'll blow off the top of your head!"

She held him firmly by the neck,
He hadn't a chance to scoot;
He looked at the teeth and the big glass eye,
And said, "Madam, for Pete's sake, shoot!"

Several years ago, I found a neat "Old Bachelor" card  game that turns the tables, featuring all male caricatures.

Now that I like!  But, still, old bachelor doesn't have the same ring to it as old maid; a bachelor is a man who hasn't married, an old maid is a woman who was never asked to marry.  Maybe in these P.C. times it should be changed to old bachelorette? 

I still like spinster.
I like how Edisto explained it from that reference...and I have had no qualms using it to denote my status for at least 4 or 5 years now.
It is what I am, because I am not a maiden.
(I also enjoy throwing the cats into the description, and the fact that I wear glasses.)

I still like spinster.
I like how Edisto explained it from that reference...and I have had no qualms using it to denote my status for at least 4 or 5 years now.
It is what I am, because I am not a maiden.
(I also enjoy throwing the cats into the description, and the fact that I wear glasses.)
Now, if I were only a Librarian, I could be the picture in the dictionary--or the person Donna Reed would have become if Clarence hadn't intervened!

  So, what would be a good term for me?  I soooo hate widow, I feel as though I should be the mysterious woman who dresses all in black and lives in a big old house with a widow's walk that I stroll at night, living in a dream world ala Miss Havesham(sp?).

I guess I'm done with my spinning, not a spinster anymore.....or am I?  So, am I a spun-out sister?  A spunster?  A re-spinster?  A catkisser? 

I don't think you can really be called a spinster/old maid
if you are a widow --- someone wanted you. The thing about
being a spinster/old maid is that no one thought of you as
wife material. Personally, I also like to call myself a
spinster --- and I like the term widow. I don't really feel
like a true spinster --- I'm not married but I'm not out
of the game yet.

Hmmm...I don't construe an old maid as someone who has never been asked to marry.  Maybe she was just very particular about whom she married, and nobody was ever quite up to her standards.   I've never had to worry about being called any of those rude names (although I've probably been called some others equally bad).  I got married when I was 16, so I was hardly withering on the vine.  Nine years later, I had no husband and three kids to raise alone.  It was 20 years before I got married again, and I'm not altogether sure I was particular enough even so!

Oh my!  You were the proverbial child bride, Edisto!  I met my husband when I was 17 going on 18, but, didn't marry until 4 years later.  Scary to think that our parents had already had kids by that point in time.

I guess I should change my point of view to an old maid being an older woman who never chose to marry also. 

Wouldn't most women choose it if they got the chance?
Do women still want to get married? I don't read women's
magazines -- I have no idea. Does being married still make
you better than being single? What if you met a man & hated
his last name & you didn't want to marry him because of it &
you just lived together?

Lots of women these days don't choose to take the husband's suname anyway.  I think that's a very good thing.   That way, it's impossible to tell whether a couple is married or just sharing quarters (or whatever).  I chose to take my current husband's surname because I had been using the surname of my first husband (largely because it was the same as my children's).  I didn't want to keep it, and my children had by then gone out on their own.  If I had to do it again, I think I would have reverted to my maiden name.  Some people would have thought it was strange, but that would have been a concern for only a short time.  (I have some cousins whose surname is "Muckenfuss."  A woman would really have to be crazy about one of them  -- or maybe just plain crazy, period -- to want to take thnat one on!  However, I have to say they're darling people and worth the sacrifice.)

A good friend of mine kept her maiden name, mainly for business reasons, as she had an executive position.  Her husband chose to take her name (he wasn't career oriented & they decided it would be better when they had kids, everyone had the same last name).  Caused quite a scandal @ the time, even tho they married in the 90s.  Ironically, it was HER family who didn't like it.  In the end, it worked out well...even tho the marriage ended, she has custody of the child...there's no name changing & confusion.

In Arab cultures, this is common practice, as the tradition is the children "belong" to the woman.

Even if you don't take your husbands name it is still
what people think of you as. I knew a young man & just
hated the idea of ever getting married to him -- his
last name was the same as the actor who played a certain
feller named Gomer --- yes, rather than Jim N. I would have
been Kim N. I just couldn't do it. I think that makes
me very shallow!